A Kitchen with a View and a #Giveaway

This book is straight out of Italy.

And I mean that literally.

The author contacted me and offered her book, A Kitchen with a View, plus a copy for one of my readers, straight from her Italian kitchen. How wonderful is that.

She offered to ship a book to a winner, but I know how that international shipping can be. It sometimes takes a loooooong time, so I offered to ship to the winner and save everyone that little bit of extra angst.

So. About the book.

The author, Letizia Matticiacci, is both a home cook and a cooking teacher, so the recipes are the sort that you'd find in a modern Italian home, and the instructions are clear. Measurements are in both metric and in spoon and cups, so you don't need to convert anything.

And the recipes are quite tempting. And doable in an American kitchen. And, like many Italian recipes, they rely on good ingredients instead of a lot of bells and whistles.

One recipe that I found interesting was an Umbrian-style chicken cacciatora which had no tomatoes. Pretty much every other cacciatore I've seen or eaten relied heavily on tomatoes, but this one got its flavor from fresh herbs, garlic, balsamic vinegar, and a little bit of lemon juice.

There's a pasta sauce recipe that's so brilliantly simple - dried porcini mushrooms, garlic, wine, and cheese play starring roles. Another pasta sauce uses Italian sausage, onion, cream, wine, and cheese. So simple, but just think about the flavors!

It's not all about dinners, though. There are salads and dessert (mmmm. hazelnut and chocolate gelato!) as well as information about ingredients as well as the lifestyle in the area. Like the olive harvest! It made me wish I had olive trees.

If you're interested in Italian home cooking that's being done today - as opposed to restaurant dishes that have been etched in stone - then this is a great glimpse into what you might find if you wandered into a home in the Umbria area.

The giveaway is over, but you can still buy your own copy of A Kitchen with a View!